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...of 'fiscal conservative'. From a pretty good essay on the subject by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., in response to Trent Lott sticking his foot in it a couple of years back:
'What do I mean? Prior to the Civil War, at various times, Americans expressed their politics through four political parties -- Federalists, Democrats, Whigs and Republicans. Democrats were the slavery party and, after 1854, Republicans were the anti-slavery party. Republicans believed in the ideology of "free labor." Democrats believed in the ideology of "slave labor." During the Civil War, Democrats were mostly the Confederates and Republicans were mostly the Unionists. Following the Civil War, we were left with just two parties, Democrats and Republicans. Democrats either were, or cooperated with, the KKK in undermining and destroying Reconstruction, even as Radical Republicans supported it.
After the Civil War, southern Democrats were out of power and northern Republicans occupied the South militarily. Southern Democrats were trying to figure out a way to get back in power.
The former slaves were now being elected to state and federal legislatures and taxing the property owners -- the former slave-owners -- to pay for the education, health care and housing of the freedmen. These Democrats resented it, but they knew if they continued down the anti-black path the North would never let them back in the Union. So these same wealthy former slave-owners came up with another strategy. They couldn't hold anti-black conventions any more, so, instead, they convened anti-taxpayer conventions. Thus, out of these anti-taxpayer conventions came the language of "tax and spend liberals." Now, northerners couldn't call them racists any more; they were just responsible FISCAL CONSERVATIVES! They weren't racists, they just didn't want to spend the amount of money that was necessary to "fix the problem."
I would hope that everybody here would note that most of the country switched party affiliations, particularly in the South, right about the same time the Voting Rights Act passed in 1964.
Just curious; what part of killing 30-50,000 Iraqi civilians is 'compassionate', exactly?
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